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Rosemarie Dewitt's Family Under Siege in “POLTERGEIST”

Monday, June 8, 2015

After a series of acclaimed turns in film, television
and theatre, Rosemarie DeWitt’s grace, style and charm are at the heart of
several highly-anticipated projects in which she collaborates with some of the
industry’s most honored talent. She has
shone in both starring and supporting roles, working consistently across
television, theater and film.

Now
she brings her considerable talents to Poltergeist, where, alongside her friend
Sam Rockwell, she plays the mother in a family dealing with a devastating
supernatural nightmare in the depths of suburbia. It is Rosemarie’s first foray
into the horror genre.

“Poltergeist”
is set in the rapidly fading, disenfranchised American ideal we know as
suburbia. Dewitt who plays Amy Bowen, is
a mother of two whose husband has recently been laid off from work. The family
then moves to a rundown, cookie-cutter
community of three-bedroom homes, unkempt yards and chain link fences in an
Illinois neighborhood that sets the scene for the unsuspecting protagonists,
the Bowen family. It reminds audiences
that life in suburbia can sometimes be a long way from comfort and safety.

But
it is the children who first notice that something is off about the house, even
before the Bowens take ownership.
Griffin (Kyle Catlett), the middle child, catches his younger sister
Maddy (Kennedi Clements) having a conversation with an unseen…something…in what
will soon be her bedroom closet. By the
time the family moves into their new home, the stage is set for the discovery
of otherworldly forces.

“It
almost felt like we were making two movies, one with the horror and the scare
of it all, and one was a character-driven piece with a really solid cast,
especially for a genre movie,” DeWitt says. “I don't feel they often go after
that, like it's not always as important, and that made it really, really fun.”

In the film, the family home is built on a cemetery
that was supposed to have been moved before the house was built. But while the tombstones were relocated, the
actual bodies were left underneath. This
caused a group of wandering souls to be stuck in the “in-between” and fiercely
determined to get through to their eternal destination. The spirits need Maddy and her innocent
source of light to guide them to the afterlife, where they will be set free.

Taken
by the script, “Poltergeist” marks DeWitt’s first horror movie, “When I read
David's [Lindsay-Abaire] script – he’s pretty amazing, a playwright and
screenwriter from New York – it was clear he’d written really relatable
characters. I think we all related to the element of disconnect in our society,
and I think we're a little scared of where that's going to take us. I think
that's very much where we're at, and I think part of what we fear for our kids
is the unknown. So I guess the poltergeist could really be anything; it's
whatever we put on that's evil or dangerous, and Madison – the youngest
daughter – is pure, so she communicates well with them.”

“Poltergeist”
will open June 24 (also available in 3D) from 20th Century Fox to be
distributed by Warner Bros.